Rented out Madden 09 All-Play for the Wii this weekend.  Ummmm....  what the hell?  OK, I don't mind cutesy stuff, as long as it's limited to Nintendo products.  But in Madden, it's pretty off-putting.  Mii Madden, Mii referees, and the friggin' Wii movements for the Speed-Racer style victory dance all are very, very wrong.  When I play Madden, I want to feel that I'm actually at a football game, you know?  The last copy of Madden I owned was Madden 07 for the PS2, and that was, more or less, my gold standard for how it's supposed to be done.  Yes, even the fans with the body paint.  There's nothing more satisfying than watching a bunch of die-hards sulk off the stands because the game's a lost cause.

More successful, though, was the Super Mario Galaxy rental.  Good Lord, this is a fun game.  FUN FUN FUN.  Thanks to who recommended this to me as a fun two-player game.  It totally is.  My girlfriend didn't expect to be sucked into it (she's not a gamer and just wanted to watch), but when I handed her the second controller, it wasn't long before she was saying: "One more level.  I want more star bits."  After about five hours, she was giving me a hard time for failing to pick up the 1-up perched atop a rock formation in the Beach Level.  I'm definitely going to have to head out to a Best Buy later to buy this durn thing.